OK, we'll admit it: When we first heard the news that Mayor Eric Adams will only be taking "off-topic" questions from the press once a week—that is, questions that don't pertain to the specific event the mayor is attending or the topic he's holding a press conference on—we were angry and confused. We weren't alone among members of the local press cinematic universe in feeling that way. The New York Post called Adams's new policy, which he announced Monday, "bizarrely restrictive." One of Bill de Blasio's former press secretaries told Politico he believed "the Adams administration is essentially tying an arm and a leg behind its back" by limiting media access to the mayor.
Critics of the new policy noted that other mayors, like Ed Koch or Michael Bloomberg, regularly made themselves available to journalists for questions. Even Bill de Blasio, who caught flack from the press after implementing a similar policy as mayor, still made himself available for questioning a few times a week with regular appearances on NY1 and WNYC. The prospect of a mayor who isn't willing to display that level of accountability is disturbing.
But the truth is, the mayor is just extremely busy doing all of the other important things that are a part of his job. Cut him some slack—he's only one man! There's probably a very important flag-raising ceremony he needs to get to, after all.
Take, for instance, the fact that the mayor announced this new policy on the first day of a two-day "fentanyl summit"—a tremendous feat of multitasking, the kind we can't possibly expect on a regular basis from the man in charge of the most populous city in the country. A video posted to the mayor's official Instagram account yesterday put his packed schedule on full display.
In the space of a single week, Adams was hard at work "getting stuff done" for the people of New York by "delivering remarks" at events like the Latin African American Chaplains Association Anniversary Gala and the 28th annual Mahatma Gandhi Peace March, yelling "mi casa, su casa, I love you" at a crowd celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and thanking the City workers who saved that woman from a shark attack this summer. You think a politician with all of that on his plate could possibly take the time to answer any silly little questions about, say, asylum seekers, or emergency preparedness, or the utter lack of accountability for the cops who killed Kawaski Trawick, or his "tired demeanor" after a birthday fundraiser, or the general state of things in New York City? Obviously not!
"No mayor in the history of this city has been more accessible, more approachable, more on the ground than I have," Adams reminded us, the ungrateful press, after he made his off-topics announcement. And he's right: If we want it badly enough, all New York journalists have to do to get a slice of our mayor's precious, precious time is stop an animal attack or throw a parade. Or we can just wait until later today, when Adams holds his first weekly conference where we get to ask him anything we want.
Some links we weren't too busy to read:
- Feeling lucky? Try buying a lottery ticket at this smoke shop in Newburgh.
- An open street in Fort Greene is the latest to go out with a whimper.
- Looking forward to seeing Eric Adams throw the heart sign up at the Darien Gap.
- Numbers remain fuzzy with respect to the East Harlem Target's supposedly theft-related closure.
- LCD Soundsystem is playing the Holy Trinity of Venues That Will Make You Feel Old and Claustrophobic.
- I'd rather be scuba diving for trash in Queens.
- Medication abortion will now be available via telehealth in NYC.
- After outreach from the state's Department of Labor, 379 employers in New York state have signed up to provide around 18,000 jobs to asylum seekers with work permits.
- RIP, Philadelphia journalist and homeless services advocate Josh Kruger.
- You can report the number of rats in a subway station on this app now, if that's something you feel like doing.
- A nine-year-old girl was found safe after she was allegedly abducted in upstate New York on Saturday.
- The Board of Correction will regain the ability to watch video from Rikers Island this week, after more than eight months of restricted access.
- On the myth of small, mom-and-pop landlords: "For landlords, the language of victimization, which both identity politics and right-wing grievance draw upon, proves a potent force, tying together a relatively economically and politically diverse movement. It is the central engine of real estate’s outrage machine." (Not powerful enough to take down rent stabilization in New York, though.)
- Six bags of McDonald's for the hungry boy.
- There isn't enough affordable housing in New York for this state homeless housing voucher program to be viable.
- Nothing like a beautiful October day…at the new Manhattan public beach?
